1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to gaming machines such as a slot machine with symbols aligned in a plurality of columns variably displayed thereon.
2. Description of Related Art
A gaming machine (e.g., a slot machine) is known which rotates reels (symbol display device) having a plurality of symbols on their periphery and then stops the rotation of the reels to rearrange the symbols. As the symbol display device built in such a gaming machine rotates the reels mechanically to scroll the symbols, or rotates the reels virtually on a display device such as a liquid crystal display or a CRT to scroll the symbols.
With such types of gaming machines (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,334,612), generally, the symbol display device starts a game after insertion of at least one medal or coin (referred to as game media, hereafter) and a predefined start up operation (such as pressing a spin button). Subsequently, termination processing of the scrolling symbols is executed based on the result of lottery executed within the gaming machine. Then, predefined game media are paid out to a player based on the combination of the rearranged symbols.